


Train up a Child

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [119]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Family Feels, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Ponds has always given Rex what he needs.  Rex begins to understand what that means.
Relationships: CC-6454 | Ponds & CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Soft Wars [119]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 31
Kudos: 338





	Train up a Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CmonCmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/gifts).



> Thanks Cmon for talking this through with me and helping prod it out from under the sofa!

“What did you do?”

It’s teasing but not, a joke however honest. He doesn’t get an answer. Ponds has gotten used to disappointment.

“I can’t cover for you if I don’t know what to misdirect.” Boots edge closer but words hold distant. Distant, distant always distant, and further every day.

Ponds has made friends with disappointment. He isn’t surprised anymore.

And then, for once, he is. It is Rex, he knows, he thinks he knows, lurking at the edges of his bunk. It is Rex’ika that slides in behind him.

It’s Ponds’ Rex’ika that drops a head against his spine.

There’s love and warmth and sudden terror because this is Ponds’ Rex’ika, his Rex’ika who he’d thought had stayed behind.

Rex followed them out to war. Ponds has never told anyone that he feared they’d left Rex’ika forever in that dorm that was once their galaxy.

“What happened,” he says, he demands, he’ll _fix it_ if only he knows.

“Nothing.” Lie, cleanly built in crisp-edged tone and solid indifference. Absent, where once it would have been sulked. A lie nonetheless.

“Rex’ika.”

“I haven’t done anything. Nothing’s wrong.” A heartbeat, a moment, and sigh wound tight with exasperation. “Why does something have to be wrong?”

Because that’s how it works, isn’t it? That is how it works anymore. Ponds would stitch his lips closed before he’d say that to his Rex’ika. His Rex’ika hears anyway.

Too smart. They’ve never been able to hide anything from him, even when they desperately wanted to.

The breath on Ponds’ neck is shaky. Arms like docking clamps vice-grip his ribs. “That isn’t fair,” Rex’ika discovers and his anger isn’t at Ponds. He’s always felt too strongly. Ponds can only blame himself for that.

Something on his shelf of fidgets and soundings whirs up then down. Something else ticks even time a little too long for a second. Even without the forced-steady breaths at his back and the hum of pulse against his chest, his single room wouldn’t be that creeping, isolating silent. Ponds wraps hands around his Rex’ika’s and counts the wooden thunks of some far-world’s ancient timepiece.

Mace swaps them out occasionally, always right before Ponds gets used to it. He always brushes off Ponds’ thanks.

“I love you,” Rex’ika says, where Ponds expected only apology. The air is too thick to breathe.

“It’s fine-”

“It _isn’t_ -”

“It is.” Rex’ika burrows in, as if he could keep them from ever letting go. Ponds presses back just as desperately. “Kids are always a little self-centered,” he says. He’s good at words and his don’t shake. “When they get used to being someone’s everything.” He doesn’t have to say how few of them ever got that. He doesn’t have to say how happy he is he could give that to Rex’ika. “What’s important is that they grow out of it. What’s more important is that they’re still loved, even if they don’t grow out of it.”

He feels Rex’ika’s swallow against his shoulder. He feels the promise pressed to his back. He grins and it is relief.

He doesn’t have to say he feared Rex’ika wouldn’t ever get the chance to.

“I love you,” he says and Rex hears and accepts it, instead of taking it as due. “Now tell me what you did to Gett.” The groan he gets is whine and sulk and Rex’ika. He laughs.

“I didn’t do _anything_ to Commander Gett.”

Truth.

Ponds frowns.

Rex’ika has pasted himself to Ponds like a Nubian opee but Ponds raised him, almost as much as Cody did. Ponds knows the places to prod and poke to make him hiss and twitch into openings and curl into defense. Most of the places: one or two Rex’ika has learned to protect. He’s grown.

Ponds wriggles free and squirms them both around. He catches Rex’ika before a stray knee can knock him right off Ponds’ bunk.

“Nothing?”

Rex is red-faced sheepish and Ponds, again, prays his Staff fleeces him regularly at sabacc and ensures no one else does.

“I approved his request.” Rex’ika reaches for lofty tone but the attempt is nexu-newborn pathetic. He shrugs, picks idly at his short nails, fiddles with the tassels and loops and buttons on Ponds’ blanket. “This is interesting, did you make it?”

Ponds swats him at the collar.

“ _You_ approved it?”

“I _am_ a Captain these days.” He sniffs. “Assignment requests are my job.”

He says it as though it’s normal. As though he’s been anything like normal with assignment requests. Ponds stares. Rex doesn’t meet his eyes.

“What did you unofficially, implicitly, imply your troopers should do to Gett-”

“How did you do it?”

“Don’t change the subject Rex’ika!”

“I’m not.”

Truth.

Rex’ika shuffles. He fits two fingers under a plast button, around the stitching. He blinks up at Ponds only from the corner of his eyes. “How did you make yourself let me go?”

Ponds sits back. Rex’ika grabs his arm, so he doesn’t slide off the narrow cot.

Every single member of Shebs picked CTs for their Staff. None of them asked for Rex.

“It wasn’t _easy_ ,” Ponds bites. He maybe can’t hear the sting of accusation in Rex’ika’s words but he feels it just the same. “But it was what you _wanted_. Even if you acted like it would kill you to actually _say something_.”

Rex reaches out. Rex’ika had always waited for Ponds to move first.

The bunk is narrow and Ponds can’t remember when last he curled in one so close together. The space is smaller, with two. The Keldabe Rex pulls him into starts with a thunk a shade harder than he imagines Rex intended.

They wince. Laugh.

“You didn’t get that from me,” Ponds says and means the clumsiness and reticence both.

“I blame Cody,” Rex snarks and means the same.

Ponds giggles.

“There’s a breakpoint where holding on becomes holding back,” Rex says and it has the weight of wisdom borrowed, the cadence of quote. “Thank you, for not holding me back.”

Ponds wraps hands around his neck. He holds as if their hearts could touch. “I couldn’t.” Simple words, deeply felt. And now Rex understands how to hold the same.

Growing up, their Rex’ika. Ponds doesn’t have words for how grateful he is he got to see it. He curls them together and Rex’s compliance isn’t grudging.

Ponds hadn’t realized how much he missed it.

“So Gett gets to borrow ARCs.”

“Two of them. My three newest are skilled but haven’t led anything bigger than a squad before. I’m starting to learn when it’s better to dunk them and let them swim, and when it’s best to wait for them to wade in. My Scout … doesn’t want an external assignment.” Rex half-smiles and grimaces. “Even if it would probably kill him to say something.”

You deserve them, Ponds doesn’t say. Every spiny, stubborn, clever, competent one; every frustrating, gratifying moment.

“Tell Gett I talked you into it.” Rex’ika has never had issues with people noticing his skill. He’s always been shy about people noticing his improvements, and this is the sort of news that will outspeed hyperspace. “His favors file is disgustingly small, I could probably only wheedle _one_ Venator out of him on what I have right now.”

Rex snorts, but he’ll let Ponds help. Growing up, but not too much. Just enough.

Ponds scratches his chin over the familiar buzzcut. He remembers how to be happy.


End file.
